Note To Self
by LadyAnnachronism
Summary: "I can barely express how much I miss him, biting my bottom lip, I would die for one more kiss." Note To Self is a psychological retrospect of Sookie's own questioning of the choices that brought her to a loveless marriage and the need for someone else. Takes place after the last book, not your conventional story.
1. Preface

Dear you,

Do you believe in love?

It is a simple question but really, have you ever stopped yourself and truly asked whether you believe in this deep connection, this bond that no-one and nothing can replace?

Is it possible for someone to leave you with such an impact that you are marked for life? No matter where you look, you see their face. No matter how hard you try to forget them, their smiles haunts you and no matter how hard you try to learn to live without them, you can't?  
They have left a permanent scar on your soul that burns constantly even when you don't think about it.

They left a hole in your heart so big that nothing is close to being good enough to fill it.

It is like an endless well that constantly runs out of water. The worst though, is the ghost they leave in your mind. That obsession where you replay over and over again the time you spent with them because you are terrified to forget them. Their finger prints are plastered in your memories and anytime you are reminded of it, it never fails to take your breath away.

When I was a little girl, I believed in true love, it was the kind the princesses had with princes. I grew up, met someone I thought was the one and realized they were not. I got angry and questioned love. Maybe it was just the fairy tale ending, nothing is perfect in life, so why would love be?

Then I met _him_ and everything changed.

When I close my eyes, it's _his_ I see. When I take a breath, it's _his_ I feel. I get this automatic knot in my stomach the moment I hear his name in the grocery store or called at the bar. I keep telling myself I will forget about _him_ , but how could I when I can still smell _him_ on my skin? I would give anything to feel _his_ touch again or to see _him_ laugh. I wish I could steal back those moments where we laughed so hard we cried and the others where we loved each other so much we cried again.

They say time heals everything but it has been 5 years and he is still in my heart and in my head. Sure at first the emotions burns bright. You have a rollercoaster of them between anger, hate, and sadness: disbelief sometimes including jealousy because you know he is not alone and you wish you were her. Over the years though, there is only one thing that lingers; _his_ absence.

I miss him so much; there is not one day that doesn't go by that I don't think about him, where he is, what he is doing or if he thinks of me. When I am alone, I cry for him, for myself, for everything that I have lost, that WE have lost because it is the only time I can truly express how I feel deep down. His absence has a constant grip on my heart, squeezing until it bleeds tears of heartache. My stomach is in a vice that keeps on closing in and I cannot do anything else but to yell out in pain to relieve the pressure, just like the steam in a kettle.

Nothing compares to him, absolutely nothing. I walk my days without purpose, feeling lonely without his soul with mine. I thought time would take this pain away but it only makes it more real, deeper and dull.

I would die for one more kiss, that's what I keep telling myself. His lips on mine, I would tremble.

You see, this love I wasn't sure I could believe in but now I cannot deny it, it is a burden I carry with me every day. How am I supposed to love another man when my heart clearly belongs to another?  
I made a choice; I followed my head because I didn't want to see what my heart wanted. I foolishly believed that I could convince my heart to love someone because they were what I logically wanted. All it did for my heart was to make it scream louder and louder and I had no choice but to become numb, waiting for that one chance to live again at his side, but accepting it might never come.

I married Sam, I wanted kids with him. We tried, but something was wrong and I continued to stand alone in my marriage until I couldn't anymore and left without saying many words other than "he is still with me". I somehow convinced myself that if I couldn't have him, I would much rather just be alone. I was questioning my faith on whether there are such things as true love and whether people would find each other again in heaven if they couldn't in this life?

But if you had a shot at trying again with 'your him', would you take it?

Would you risk being hurt again? The type of hurt where you find yourself screaming and crying on the floor until there is nothing left?

Would you risk your family life? Your comfort and your stability?

Would you risk hurting the people around you whether it is a husband, a daughter, a son or anyone else who shares your everyday life?

Would you be able to face the hurt in their eyes just for one more chance at holding him?

Would you believe him when he says he has never stopped loving you and that he too cannot move on despite everything that has happened?

Would you believe that life is giving you a second chance no matter how far apart you are and no matter how many fucking obstacles are in your way?

Would you?

I did and remember what I said about dying for one more kiss?

Well I did and I woke up without a maker hungry for blood.

 **Sookie**


	2. Chapter 1

_**1**_

**6 months ago**

Dear you,

I can't breathe. I feel so lonely as if everyone around me goes on and on with their life but here I am, just standing by myself in a marriage I don't want anymore. Sam is far from the husband I wish he was. To tell you the truth, I wish he was someone else and over the years I realized that time doesn't fix anything, it just makes it worst.

How can it feel this wrong? I keep asking myself, why and how did I get here? Hoping for some kind of sign I never got, I married Sam in the hopes that time would heal my feelings for him. I was never in love with him but I somehow convinced myself that passion is not everything and I could move on without it. I could have a stable and loving relationship without the intensity passion brings.

As I took several deep breaths and a couple years later I realized how much I was wrong. Having kids, a house, a marriage, it's not enough when you do not love your husband. Actually, it makes everything worse. Anything that Sam does wrong is like amplified by a 1000 because I don't have that love for him that would soften the gravity of the problem.

So we fight all the time, for silly things because I just don't love him. At first, our fights were one sided, I was freaking out but he may have had that love for me that made taking my freak outs easier for him. After several months though, I could see that love leave his eyes when he got angry; I cannot blame him for it because there was always that other person that made it impossible for Sam to reach me. Reach my heart.

I need to leave this marriage, I have decided weeks ago I was going to but I don't know how. I mean we have the bar and my house. I don't want to lose either. My house is all that I have left. Sam could really hurt me here. And our friends, how do you tell people that your marriage is just not working? I would be cast away to hell, breaking the most sacred vows of all.

I don't want to be on the street, I don't want to have to find a new job and new friends because we work at the same place and because we share the same one. The truth is that I am comfortable in my own misery and leaving it behind is a huge leap of faith I am not sure I am ready for.

Do I want to be alone? For the rest of my life I mean? Because believe me when I say, Eric will be the only one I will ever love and I do not want to make the same mistake again. So am I really ready to come home to an empty house, to have dinner by myself, to have all the chores just for me? Am I ready to have miserable days and have no one to talk to about it because most of my friends will have lives of their own while I stayed behind waiting?

Because that is exactly what I would be sentencing myself to do, waiting forever, unable to break from the past. I would be on stand still, hanging on to my fading memories. If I cannot be with him, I would rather be alone I tell myself, but it is a high price for having made one mistake.

Am I truly ready to leave all this behind?

Maybe I should reach out to Eric. I mean sure I am not allowed to see him but surely there is a way I could send him a letter or something? What if he doesn't even want me? Does it change how I feel about Sam? About my life? Does it change my forever waiting?…NO, it does not.

I mean I am not happy, I know that, being with Eric or not, it doesn't change that I am not happy with Sam. Besides, there is no guarantee even If I reach out and he writes back to me that he is still interested. Maybe Eric is angry with me? Or maybe he just plainly doesn't give a crap.

I always wondered why he was attracted to me. This is a man who can have whoever he wants with just a snap of his fingers. Why would he care about the little southern belle who only gives him trouble in the first place? He has all the reasons in the world to hate me; I would if I was him.

I feel my heart aching at that very thought. I believe what we have was real and I can only hope it is fixable, but really I won't know unless I try. I wish I could just see into the future sometimes, it would make making decisions a lot easier.

At the end of the day, I have two problems, one is my marriage, the other is the love of my life that I have lost and might never get back. Oddly enough, the two issues here are not related. The bottom line is clear to me now, I do not love Sam and I cannot continue like this. I have to leave him no matter the cost because I will be happier alone… eventually OR I can only hope. I don't want to just live. I want to experience it, feel it and I want true love. I can't do any of it in this marriage. But most of all, I want to be able to hope again. It doesn't matter for what, I just want to be able to look forward and hope for something to come. I don't want to live in an in-between, barely breathing, just to exist life.

It doesn't matter how I feel about Eric, I need to leave Sam. I will take my time but it has to be sooner than later, I need to figure out how I am going to get a divorce and how I will live without my marriage but eventually maybe, learn to live without Eric.

Sookie


	3. Chapter 2

**2**

Dear you,

I think I must have stood in the middle of the front door blinking constantly for at least half and hour. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

He wrote back!

You see, I decided that I needed to reach out to Eric about 2 weeks ago. I don't know what came over me but I just needed a little nudge a simple note to say "please don't forget about me, I haven't forgotten about you!" So I send a letter, not expecting anything back. Not even a bit of hope for one. I just did it, completely out of selfishness, I found it liberating.

My letter was really short; actually I should just call it a note. It just said

 _I am sorry._

Heck I didn't even signed it; I just mailed it to him without a returning address. What if she was screening his mail or something? Plus, I figured the letter didn't make its way to him or if he didn't know who it was from, it would mean it was just not meant to be.

So you can imagine my surprise when I saw the envelope and his hand writing on the front of it. I didn't need to open it, I knew it was his. I was a bit shocked but I also felt the stomach crunching fear of what I would find. I wasn't sure I was ready to read what he had to say. So I took the envelope inside and set it on the table. I walked away almost as if I was making a point it didn't change anything to my situation and that I did not need to know.

Sam and I are just not working. I haven't told him yet that my feet are basically out the door because I don't know how. Do I tell him I just don't love him anymore? Or do I tell him the truth that I cannot forget Eric and that I'd rather be alone?

It would be easy to blame silly things like he never picks up after himself, he is never home, we never really do anything as a couple or our intimacy is not what it used to be but I feel that would actually be lying because I know the real reason. I don't love him because I love another.

I don't want to hurt Sam but I know I will have to. I find it hard to look at him anymore and I always pull away if he tries to kiss me or hold me. It is at a point now he doesn't try anymore. Some nights I know he sleeps on the couch because he doesn't want to be rejected again.

I feel terrible. I don't know how to leave a marriage. There is no book about it and it is certainly something that is frown upon here. So who should I turn to? Can I even tell someone or should I just suck it up and take it as punishment.

He mentioned couples' therapy the other day. I humoured him and I said I would go with him but I secretly hope the therapist will be smart enough to see I don't want to be with him anymore and give him the appropriate tools to help himself. I told him that I am willing to fight for us but I didn't mean it.

Does that make me a liar? Well I am answering my own questions I guess, of course it does. It comes so naturally now. I have been pretending to love him for so long now it comes almost automatically.

I think I left the letter on the table until Sam came home. By then, I had debated to read it but when I heard the door, I ran to the table terrified he would find it and wonder who it is from. Worst, he would actually recognize the hand writing and flip his shit.

I placed it in my pocket and I could tell by the look on his face he found my behavior odd. I brushed it off and started cooking dinner as a nice diversion. I also asked him how the bar was and told him I would be going in an hour. I knew he would have preferred if I stayed home tonight especially that I noticed he was making an extra effort to ensure the shifts were covered by the waitresses but the truth was that I enjoyed working because it meant I wasn't home.

I ate my dinner with him that night and itched to get to work partly because I didn't want to be in the same house as him but also because I wanted to read the letter and the bar was the perfect place. I said bye to him and he didn't even answer.

When I got to work, I placed the letter on the desk in the office and proceeded to work because I still didn't have enough guts to open it. Go figure.

I am sure you are dying to know what was in it so I will spare you the details but I actually waited until the bar was closed, empty and locked up to open it. I wanted to be completely alone. It was 2 o'clock in the morning; I was exhausted, stressed and scared. I knew that if anything negative was in it the letter, I was not in shape to handle it properly so being alone was a safety precaution really. It was now or never and I actually considered burning it so I would never know but I didn't.

 _Lover,_

 _There is nothing to be sorry for. I don't know how I could ever make it right by you._

My heart jumped out of my chest or at least that is how it felt. I blinked a few times in disbelief but also out of shock. I don't know what I was expecting, I wasn't sure if we would play the blame game or if he would just ignore me but I guess I didn't expect this. Nothing to be sorry for? Right by me? He even called me lover!

I let out a sound I can only described as a mix of relief, surprised and contempt. As if someone had taken a huge weight of my shoulders, I felt light.

I must have stayed there for at least an hour, I can't remember but time doesn't matter when it comes to matters of the heart. I was prepared to stay alone for the rest of my life but now, with just a few words, he had given me the hope I thought I would never have again.

I cried a lot, unable to contain all the feelings that were pouring in. He didn't sound angry or annoyed; I mean he took the time to reply to me!

I didn't what to do with myself, how to stop the tears, how to freaking breathe. I ended up leaving when I was able to somewhat composed myself but I was praying Sam would be in bed and wouldn't see the mess I was.

I didn't sleep that night or any nights since. I go from being super happy and hopeful to worried and scared. The motional rollercoaster is hard to hide from Sam but I manage. I know I need to tell him it's over, if I was convinced before the letter now I am determined.

Sookie


End file.
